This aircraft is believed to have been shot down by a Spitfire Vb of No.118 Squadron (P/O J. Veen) and crashed into the sea 35 miles south of Portland, Dorset.

Extract from the personal diaries of Hptm. Armin Goebel, 1./(F)123

Around evening, when the crew had taken course for the English south coast with their reconnaissance order, everything had at first appeared to be running normally. The radio connection with the ground was working faultlessly. Everything was in perfect order, until – yes until the machine announced twice in quick succession “Fighters!“. Then it went quiet. The Bodenstelle called many times, but the machine gave no further sign of life. We then sat with the Staffelkapitän at the command post and waited. – Waited, as we had done a good many times before. Waited and waited. Anxious and worried thoughts were shaken off. We all tried to raise our hopes. “Perhaps the radio equipment had been shot to pieces”, suggested one; or “the machine had been forced off course during an air battle and had had to land at a strange airfield“, considered another. ---

The time passed infinitely slowly. The machine could still be in the air. In the meantime it had become dark. Air traffic control facilities started to buzz. New hope! „ An unidentified machine is circling over Buc, was announced by telephone. “There it is!“ shouted all the assembled comrades at the command post in unison and their expressions brightened. But a little later came the report that the machine belonged to another Staffel.Our restlessness became unbearable. Thick cigar smoke filled the small room of the command post. Every time the telephone rang, everyone sat up tensely and took notice of the news that the Gefechtsstandsoffizier had to give. But no more became known of the fate of the missing crew. – A speedboat which had been sent out on a sea rescue search had returned, without success, to its base. Slowly the bitter truth, that the crew of the “Berta“ would no longer return, became a certainty.We turned off the lights in the command post and quietly went home, all our thoughts with the four missing comrades.

8th May 1942

Oblt. Schlichting, who had started at the crack of dawn with the “Anton“ with the order to search the English Channel for the crew Leutnant. Nolte, Unteroffizier. Gölz, Unteroffizier. Schulze and Unteroffizier. Graff who had been missing since yesterday evening, had now landed. There was absolutely no need to ask what the outcome had been; Their faces said it all : Nothing had been found!

The body of Peter Gölz was washed ashore at Weymouth on May 28th, Uffz. Schulze was found east of Portland Bill and was buried at sea.

Burial detail:

The grave of the pilot Peter Gölz can be found at the Deutsche Soldatenfriedhof Cannock Chase. Block 34 Grave 37.

Researched and compiled by Melvin Brownless with special thanks to Armin Goebel and Fritz Schlichting for their help in constructing this page, August 2013.The British Library is preserving this site for the future in the UK Web Archive at www.webarchive.org.uk All Aircrew Remembered on our Remembrance pages, are therefor not just remembered here, but also subsequently remembered and recorded as part of our nation’s history and heritage at The British Library.